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Taliban Offensive Rocks
Helmand:
The Lackluster Performance Of
The Afghan Army So Far In
Helmand Evoked Comparisons
With Iraq
Only The District Center Is Under
The Control Of Government
If The Government Is Unable To
Control And Secure The Lives Of The
Ordinary People, I Suggest They Leave It
To The Taliban, Said A Village Elder In
Sangin

Given the debacle last summer, the militarys lack of preparedness so far this year
is all the more striking.

Police officers ran out of ammunition, and in some cases bodies could not be
recovered because of the fighting.

J UNE 27, 2014 By AZAM AHMED and TAIMOOR SHAHJ UNE, The New York Times
Company [Excerpts]

KABUL, Afghanistan In one of the most significant coordinated assaults on the
government in years, the Taliban have attacked police outposts and government
facilities across several districts in northern Helmand Province, sending police and
military officials scrambling to shore up defenses and heralding a troubling new chapter
as coalition forces prepare to depart.

The attacks have focused on the district of Sangin, historically an insurgent stronghold
and one of the deadliest districts in the country for the American and British forces who
fought for years to secure it.

The Taliban have mounted simultaneous attempts to conquer territory in the neighboring
districts of Now Zad, Musa Qala and Kajaki. In the past week, more than 100 members
of the Afghan forces and 50 civilians have been killed or wounded in fierce fighting,
according to early estimates from local officials.

Already, areas once heavily patrolled by American forces have grown more violent as
the Afghan military and the police struggle to feed, fuel and equip themselves. The
lackluster performance of the Afghan Army so far in Helmand has also evoked
comparisons with Iraq, raising questions about whether the American-trained force can
stand in the way of a Taliban resurgence.

The Taliban are trying to overrun several districts of northern Helmand and find a
permanent sanctuary for themselves, said Hajji Mohammad Sharif, the district governor
for Musa Qala. From there, they pose threats to the southern parts of Helmand and
also pose threats to Kandahar and Oruzgan Provinces.

Officials from the government and the international military coalition flew to Helmand on
Friday to assess the situation.

The military has sent in reinforcements, though early reports from residents
indicate that those forces had made little headway in pushing the Taliban back.
The police have fought ferociously to protect their areas and, in at least a few
cases, succumbed only after running out of ammunition.

While the government claims that none of the checkpoints attacked by the Taliban
have fallen, district elders and villagers say otherwise, characterizing the situation
as approaching a humanitarian crisis.

I see the people running everywhere with their women and children to take shelter,
said Hajji Amanullah Khan, a village elder. It is like a doomsday for the people of
Sangin. We do not have water, and there is a shortage of food.

The price of everything has gone up because the highways and roads have been
blocked for the last week.

Though positioned at a significant crossroads into the northern Helmand area, with
access to neighboring provinces, Sangin also carries great symbolic weight. The Taliban
have repeatedly used the area to make a statement about the limits of Afghan and
Western government strength, and local officials fear a similar approach now.

The Taliban are planning to create problems in several northern Helmand districts to
pave the way for their fighters to operate freely in the area and pose threats to
Kandahar, Helmand and Farah Provinces, said Muhammad Naim Baloch, the provincial
governor in Helmand.

Last summer in Sangin, Afghan forces got their first taste of what that fight would look
like. Struggling to keep the Taliban at bay, they lost checkpoints, hard-fought ground and
more than 120 men.

The government shuffled commanders, but it hardly mattered.

By the end of the fighting season, the cowed Afghan Army unit there was mostly
unwilling to leave its base to confront the threat. Late last year, reports of a deal between
a local army commander and the Taliban began to surface, driven in part by attrition
rates of nearly 50 percent and the near constant threat of death.

Given the debacle last summer, the militarys lack of preparedness so far this year
is all the more striking.

Police officers ran out of ammunition, and in some cases bodies could not be
recovered because of the fighting.

Even though Helmand is the only province with an entire corps dedicated to it, the
army has struggled to defend it.

The fighting this summer appears to be worse.

In just one week, the security forces appear to have sustained almost half the
casualties they suffered in all of last summer, though reports differ on the exact
toll.

Last Saturday, as many as 600 Taliban insurgents stormed checkpoints through
portions of Sangin, claiming wide tracts of land.

On Sunday, the militants attacked the neighboring district of Now Zad. Violence erupted
in Musa Qala on Monday, when the Taliban again stormed police checkpoints but were
prevented from reaching the district center.

The assault on Sangin seems the most concerted. On Friday night, according to the
district governor, the Taliban advanced on the district center itself. The army repelled the
attack through the district bazaar, while the police stopped an attempted breach from the
north.

Only the district center is under the control of government, said Hajji Amir J an, the
deputy chief of the Sangin district council.

Although the military denied any collusion between the army and the Taliban, those
questions have started to re-emerge because most of the casualties have been suffered
by the local and national police forces rather than by the army.

The Taliban are not powerful enough to resist all of the Afghan forces, Mr. Amir
Jan said. Sangin is not an easy district to control, and the Taliban have strong
sanctuaries, but the Afghan National Army is just securing highways, and they are
not really after the Taliban.

Residents described a hellish scene for those trapped in the area. Some have started to
question whether the fight, and its toll on the people, is even worth it.

If the government is unable to control and secure the lives of the ordinary people, I
suggest they leave it to the Taliban, said Matiullah Khan, a village elder in Sangin.

We are tired of the situation and would rather die than continue living in these severe
conditions. It has been like this forever.



MILITARY NEWS


The West Needs To See The Sunni
Offensive As A Broad Rebellion By
An Oppressed People
Dividing Iraq Is Better Than Us Being
Killed Every Day

J un. 28 2014 by Mark MacKinnon, The Globe and Mail [Excerpts]

ERBIL, Iraq

The head of Iraqs largest Sunni tribe says the uprising that has seen militants conquer
much of the west and north of the country will not end until Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
is gone from office.

Sheikh Ali Hatem al-Suleimani, the head of the powerful Dulaimi tribe that has
been in open revolt against Mr. al-Malikis Shia-dominated government since last
year, said the West needs to see the Sunni offensive as a broad rebellion by an
oppressed people, rather than focusing only on the extremists from the Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that have been the spearhead of the lightning
advance towards Baghdad.

He said ISIL whom he scornfully referred to as terrorists made up just 7 to 10
per cent of the total number of Sunni fighters, and that their role in the uprising
had been exaggerated by social media, Facebook and Twitter.

ISIL has used YouTube and social media accounts to spread often-grisly videos of its
advance through the cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Samarra, apparently seeking to both gain
new followers and intimidate its opponents.

Sheikh al-Suleimani said that while ISIL and the tribes along with remnants of Saddam
Husseins Baath Party regime shared common cause in wanting to oust Mr. al-Maliki,
there was no formal alliance between them. He promised that once Mr. al-Maliki was
gone, and the Sunni uprising had achieved its other aims including a new constitution
that would see Iraq made into a federal state, with Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions that
would have wide autonomy the tribal fighters would turn their guns on ISIL and defeat
them.

We are postponing our fight with ISIL until later. After Maliki is gone, ISIL will not be a
big problem for us, he said in a meeting with The Globe and Mail and other foreign
media at a five-star hotel here in the Kurdish capital. Now is not the time to fight ISIL,
its the time to fight Maliki.

There is precedent for the sheikhs claim that the tribes are capable of handling ISIL. In
2008, the Dulaimi tribe played a key role in the so-called Sunni Awakening, which saw
the Sunni tribes who had originally fought against the U.S. occupation of Iraq switch
sides and attack al-Qaeda in Iraq after they deemed it a larger threat to their interests.
The tribes eventually forced al-Qaeda in Iraq out of their base in the western province of
Anbar.

The 43-year-old sheikh said the tribes wanted a democratic Iraq with power balanced
between Sunnis and Shias a goal not shared by ISIL, which wants to establish a
caliphate ruled by a harsh version of Islamic law. We know that ISIL dont believe in the
tribes, that they want to use us and work under our cover.

Sheikh al-Suleimani said Mr. al-Malikis government had fostered the rise of ISIL and
other hardline groups by oppressing the countrys Sunni minority. He asked why
Western countries were contemplating military action against ISIL when they had
ignored alleged atrocities committed against Sunnis by the Iraqi army, which is mainly
Shia.

Although pressure is rising even within Mr. al-Malikis own Shiite community for the
prime minister to step aside and allow the formation of a new government of national
unity, he has thus far refused, branding the push an attempted coup dtat.

Sheikh al-Suleimani said the Sunni offensive would continue all the way to Baghdad
which has a mixed population of Sunnis and Shias if Mr. al-Maliki did not resign.

Maliki says Baghdad is a red line. There are no red lines for the rebels, the tribes, he
said, with four mobile phones, two packages of cigarettes and a Diet Pepsi arrayed on
the table in front of him.

To avoid a battle for Baghdad, we have to have Maliki out of power.

He acknowledged there was a possibility the fighting could forever split Iraq. Dividing
Iraq is better than us being killed every day.



FORWARD OBSERVATIONS




At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had
I the ability, and could reach the nations ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of
biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.

For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppose.

Frederick Douglass, 1852


But out of this complicated web of material and psychic forces one conclusion
emerges with irrefutable clarity: the more the soldiers in their mass are convinced
that the rebels are really rebelling that this is not a demonstration after which
they will have to go back to the barracks and report, that this is a struggle to the
death, that the people may win if they join them, and that this winning will not only
guarantee impunity, but alleviate the lot of all the more they realize this, the
more willing they are to turn aside their bayonets, or go over with them to the
people.

And the highest determination never can, or will, remain unarmed.
-- Leon Trotsky; The History of the Russian Revolution


Ukraine 2014 -- Some Quickly
Forgotten History:
We Are Organizing Workers Into
Self-Defense Units To Prepare As
Best We Can
We Began A Couple Months Ago So
Workers Could Defend Themselves
Against Gangs Of Thugs Organized
By The Mine Bosses
The More We Talk, Said Elena
Maslova, The More Im Reminded Of
Something We Used To Think About
The Need For All Proletarians Of The
World To Unite

April 21, 2014 BY J OHN STUDER, The Militant

KRIVII RIG, Ukraine While eastern Ukraine has strong cultural ties to Russia, most
workers in the region oppose Moscows annexationist provocations, miners here told the
Militant, refuting the impression given by much of the bourgeois press coverage, from
Russia to the U.S.

The miners said they are prepared to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, which they see as a
necessary extension of defending their interests as workers against bosses in Ukraine.

There are differences between east and west Ukraine, Samoilov J uriy Petrovych, the
leader of the Independent Trade Union of Miners in Krivii Rig, an iron-ore mining center
some 85 miles southwest of Dnepropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine, told the Militant in the
unions office here March 26.

For example, there are some 200 newspapers in this region, but only 10 or 15 are in
Ukrainian. The others are all filled with Russian government propaganda calling the
Maidan protesters in Kiev fascist, claiming they are a threat to Russian-speaking people
in the east.

Here in the east we have closer ties to Russia, he said. Many of us have relatives in
Russia and have long considered Russians as our brothers. But today the Russian
government is threatening an invasion of Ukraine, and the majority of workers here
agree that we will do our best to defend our country.

We are organizing workers into self-defense units to prepare as best we can,
said Bondar Vitalievych, another union leader. We began a couple months ago so
workers could defend themselves against gangs of thugs organized by the mine
bosses.

We put out a statement saying we needed to organize to stop separatist
manifestations in Ukraine, Vitalievych said.

Pro-Moscow thugs came out, including some armed snipers, to confront our
Maidan demonstration here Feb. 24, but hundreds of workers organized in our
self-defense units prevented them from killing anyone.

We put out a flyer calling on workers to come to the city council meeting the next day to
demand the local government act on the will of the people or resign, continued
Vitalievych, pointing to a photo on the wall of hundreds of miners and others voting at
the meeting.

Members of the city council, he said, were supporters of former pro-Moscow President
Viktor Yanukovych, who had fled the country two days earlier.

The unionists are determined to step up efforts to organize workers and others prepared
to defend Ukraines national sovereignty, come what may.

The miners organized a tour for Militant correspondents of the EVRAZ iron-ore mine.
The mine is run by Russian capitalists who own ore and coal mines, processing plants
and steel mills in Ukraine, Russia, Canada, South Africa and the U.S.

This mine is extremely dangerous, Vitalievych said. Two years ago we had 23
accidents, and the government was pressured to come and carry out some inspections.

Our union fights for safer working conditions, as well as to ensure the company and
government provide health care and pensions when you leave the job, he said.

Three hundred fifty women work underground in the mine, said Elena Maslova, a 15-
year veteran in the mine and the locals director for gender equality. There are some 40
positions that women are barred from. Most work in pump stations, on conveyors and in
the explosives warehouse. Among underground miners, 10 percent are women.

When we demanded improvements in pay and working conditions for women,
the company told us if we kept complaining they would just replace us with men,
she said.

So they hired a man and put him in a position usually filled by women, at the pay
women get. But he refused to stay on the job.

The existence of our independent union is important, she said. The old unions, dating
back to before the Soviet Union collapsed, just parrot what the government and the
bosses say.

The official unions, and the educational system in the country, are only good at
preparing future slaves for industry, Vitalievych said. Weve got to involve the
younger workers, the younger miners.

The Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine (NGPU) was born out of strikes,
protests and massive marches in 1989-91, which were at the center of political ferment
that helped prepare the way for an independent Ukraine. Miners coupled demands for
higher pay, better working conditions and the right to strike with political demands,
including the end to Russian domination.

In October 1990 members of union strike committees across the country met in Donetsk
and established the new, independent miners union. The Confederation of Free Trade
Unions of Ukraine, which the NGPU is part of, was created literally in the tent camps of
the working-class people, the federation explains on its website.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the coal industry in Ukraine has taken big blows. The
number of mines has tumbled from over 300 to 143. Forty-three of the more productive
mines have been privatized.

One company, DTEK, owned by a syndicate run by Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraines richest
capitalist, accounts for almost half of the countrys coal production.

Thousands of miners were thrown out of work in the transition, leading to widespread
unemployment in coal regions in the east and west of the country.

Explosions, roof falls and silicosis lung disease take a heavy toll on miners. Mines in
Ukraine, along with those in China, are the most dangerous in the world.

Since the 2008 worldwide financial crisis, sagging demand and falling prices for coal
have hit the industry hard in Ukraine. The government closed nearly 20 percent of state-
owned mines and cut production in the others. Akhmetov said DTEK plans to both raise
production and seriously decrease the number of employees, industry journal Coal Age
reported in December.

Miners in the U.S. are facing similar assaults, Militant correspondent Frank Forrestal, a
former coal miner in western Pennsylvania, told the Ukrainian miners. Coal bosses
have closed less profitable mines in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, where the union
has had a base, and opened nonunion ones in the West. At the same time working
conditions have gotten worse as bosses cut corners to defend their profits.

Forty years ago there was a big social movement in the coal fields to enforce safer
conditions to lower the prevalence of black lung that strengthened the union, Forrestal
said. But today black lung is coming back.

The more we talk, said Elena Maslova, the more Im reminded of something we
used to think about the need for all proletarians of the world to unite.


Who Is Watergate?
I Am Personally Responsible For The
Break In By Five CIA Employees Into The
Democratic Natl Hq At The Watergate
Office Complex

From: Clancy Sigal
To: Military Resistance Newsletter
Sent: J une 17, 2014
Subject: WHO IS WATERGATE from Clancy

J une 17, 2014 by CLANCY SIGAL

A tiny item in yesterdays paper jogs my memory. The garage where, on this 42d
anniversary, Deep Throat passed teasing information to WashPost reporter Bob
Woodward is due to be demolished.

People under a certain age probably dont know about Watergate or have only a vague
textbook idea. Or they picked it up from Pakulas great movie All The Presidents Men
where Robt Redford plays the restrained gentile journalist Woodward and Dustin
Hoffman the pushy J ewish foot-in-the-door Carl Bernstein.

The film made investigative reporting not only popular but respectablethat is until our
present administration began cracking down on hardnose reporters.

I am personally responsible for the break in by five CIA employees into the Democratic
Natl Hq at the Watergate office complex.

Lets walk this back a bit.

Among Pres Nixons close aides in the 1970s who went into the slammer for (among
other crimes) obstruction of justice were my two UCLA drinking buddies also my political
enemies, Bob Haldeman and J ohn Ehrlichman.

The third man at UCLA, also a drinking companion at Westwoods Glen bar, was Alex
Butterfield, another Nixon aide, who spilled the beans with his surprise disclosure that
Nixon taped his criminal activities.

(Later, when I spoke to Alex, who was never prosecuted, and asked if it was all a CIA
plot to dethrone the president, he just smiled at me signaling well yeah maybe but you
didnt hear it from me.)

Haldeman, Ehrlichman and I were BMOC, big men on campus, sharing the same
student activities building.

The Wasp culture then was to wear a cheerful, slightly robotic Pepsodent smile even
when stabbing another student in the back. The mantra was: Its not personal, Clancy.
They were ferociously anti-Red, but we didnt let a little thing like that get in the way of
fraternity-style palship. (Bob was Beta Sig, J ohn Kapp Sig, I a barbarian which is what
Greek Row called non-orgs.)

One day, as the campus papers managing editor, I walked into the Dean of Students
office where Ehrlichman was the Deans fraternity liason and surprised him with a
magnifying class bent over photographs of student demonstrators (including me)
marking in red crayon the most dangerous subversives. Hey J ohn, whatcha doing? He
just smiled blandly,

Oh, you caught me. Much later he confessed that identifying fellow students to the FBI
and LA police red squad was his ongoing counterintelligence function whatever that
means.

I visited Haldeman in prison at Lompoc and Ehrlichman in New Mexico just before he
began his sentence.

They were happy to talk and talk and talk. J ust like the old days at the Glen. Haldeman,
the more buttoned up of the duo, was the most revealing.

He said that Watergate was born in old campus struggles that centered on the UCLA
Daily BruinDin the grip of J ewish liberals like me who had it in for him over a long-
forgotten fraternity scandal involving, yes!, a dead puppy dog. (I protested to Bob that I
wasnt a liberal then but a radical but he just blinked uncomprehendingly, I was trying to
fool him again, libs and rads whats the difference?)

Follow the logic: J ews-and-liberals (same thing) control the media (campus newspaper)
in their vendetta against loyal Americans.

By extension, when Nixon is in the White House and brings in the three UCLA boys, ALL
media is controlled by J ewish liberals who have never forgiven Haldeman for that damn
puppy dog.

So all of you who have gone to college those many long years ago and think its all
forgotten think again: old insults from a sensitive age and era have a habit of coming
back to life like Dracula and sinking in their fangs, nothing personal.


Even In Constituencies Where There
Is No Prospect Of Our Candidate
Being Elected, The Workers Must
Nevertheless Put Up Candidates In
Order To Maintain Their
Independence
They Must Not Allow Themselves To Be
Diverted From This Work By The Stock
Argument That To Split The Vote Of The
Democrats Means Assisting The
Reactionary Parties

The gist of the matter is this: In case of an attack on a common adversary no
special union is necessary; in the fight with such an enemy the interests of both
parties, the middle-class democrats and the working-class party, coincide for the
moment

This was so in the past, and will be so in the future.

March 1850 By Karl Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League
[Excerpts]

With a view to checking the power and the growth of big capital, the democratic party
demands a reform of the laws of inheritance and legacies, likewise the transfer of the
public services and as many industrial undertakings as possible to the state and
municipal authorities.

As for the workingmen well, they should remain wage workers: for whom, however, the
democratic party would procure higher wages, better labor conditions, and a secure
existence.

The democrats hope to achieve that partly through state and municipal management
and through welfare institutions. In short, they hope to bribe the working class into
quiescence and thus to weaken their revolutionary spirit by momentary concessions and
comforts.

The democratic demands can never satisfy the party of the proletariat.

While the democratic petty bourgeoisie would like to bring the revolution to a close as
soon as their demands are more or less complied with, it is our and our task to make the
revolution permanent, to keep it going until all the ruling and possessing classes are
deprived of power, the governmental machinery occupied by the proletariat, and the
organization of the working classes of all lands is so far advanced that all rivalry and
competition among themseIves has ceased until the more important forces of production
are concentrated in the hands of the proletarians

With us it is not a matter of reforming private property, but of abolishing it; not of hushing
up class antagonism, but of abolishing the classes; not of ameliorating the existing
society, but of establishing a new one.

Even in constituencies where there is no prospect of our candidate being elected,
the workers must nevertheless put up candidates in order to maintain their
independence, to steel their forces, to gauge their own strength and to bring their
revolutionary position and party views before the public

They must not allow themselves to be diverted from this work by the stock
argument that to split the vote of the democrats means assisting the reactionary
parties.

All such talk is but calculated to cheat the proletariat.

The advance which the Proletarian Party will make through its independent
political attitude is infinitely more important than the disadvantages of having a
few more reactionaries in the national representation.

The gist of the matter is this: In case of an attack on a common adversary no special
union is necessary; in the fight with such an enemy the interests of both parties, the
middle-class democrats and the working-class party, coincide for the moment, and both
parties will carry it on by a temporary understanding.

This was so in the past, and will be so in the future.

It is a matter of course that in the future sanguinary conflicts, as in all previous ones, the
workingmen by their courage, resolution, and self-sacrifice, will form the main force in
the attainment of victory.

As hitherto, so in the coming struggle, the petty bourgeoisie as a whole will maintain an
attitude of delay, irresolution, and inactivity as long as possible, in order that, as soon as
victory is assured, they may arrogate it to themselves and call upon the workers to
remain quiet, return to work, avoid so-called excesses, and thus to shut off the workers
from the fruits of victory.


Army Enters Washington Redskins
Debate:
Massacres Team, Takes Land

Photo Credit: US Army

J une 23, 2014 by G-Had, The Duffle Blog

WASHINGTON, D.C. Footballs growing controversy over the use of the name
Washington Redskins came to a screeching halt after the U.S. Army massacred the
entire team, then promptly confiscated all its land and property, sources confirmed
Monday.

Elements of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, airlifted in on UH-60 Black Hawks, fast-roped into
FedEx Field in the great history, tradition and legacy of that regiment, shooting down
stadium security guards before turning their guns on the players and owners who were
there for a routine preseason meeting.

As the troopers stormed the stadium, Redskins wide receiver Santana Moss was
discussing the naming controversy with reporters, saying, I hope the best for it because
I feel like, as a Redskin before a Staff Sergeant shouted, Hes a redskin! Get him!
and dropped him with a well-aimed shot to the torso.

7th Cavalry then took formal possession of FedEx Field, renaming it to Fort Freedom.

1st Cavalry Division commander Brig. Gen. Michael Bills has pronounced the operation
an outstanding success despite some negative publicity after one of the units
supporting AH-64 Apache helicopters blew up a local Buffalo Wild Wings to deny food to
the enemy. Bills also claimed that several widely-circulated photos, allegedly showing
troopers wearing pilfered Redskins memorabilia and collectibles on their belts, were
actually of volunteer militia recruited from the Dallas Cowboys.

Some human rights groups have objected to the Armys subsequent forced prostitution
of the Redskins cheerleader squad, but Bills explained that they need the money so
they dont starve in their tepees come winter. Authorities also grew concerned after a
large crowd of protesting fans had to disperse following a totally unexpected outbreak of
smallpox.

The 7th Cavalry has announced plans to compensate owner Dan Snyders grieving
family with some plastic beads and a bottle of whiskey.

Secretary of the Army J ohn McHugh has suggested the Army may expand the operation
to target the normally-peaceful Kansas City Chiefs and forcibly remove them to an
appropriate stadium in Oklahoma or Arizona.

None of the other services have decided whether to join the Armys operation yet.
Marine Commandant Gen. J ames Amos was unavailable for comment, and an aide
referred us to a note on his door which read: Gone to fight the Florida State Seminoles.
Will be back when the season is over.

On the one hand, we could have left the Redskins in place and tried to teach them the
ways of modern society, said Secretary McHugh. On the other hand, God created this
great stadium, and it should be given to the San Francisco 49ers, who can make more
productive use of it.

The surviving Redskins are expected to launch a legal claim on their right to FedEx
Field, which they have occupied since 1997, when the land was purchased via solemn
treaty by businessman J ack Kent Cooke over the protests of local chief Gov. William
Donald Schaeffer.

Interestingly, the land seems to have originally been owned by a corporation called
Nacotchtank, which claims the land was never actually sold.



ANNIVERSARIES


HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
Mutiny On The Amistad:
July 2, 1839
53 Slaves Recently Abducted
From Africa, Revolted



Peace History J une 26-J uly 2 By Carl Bunin [Excerpt] Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.

(J uly 2, 1839)

Amistad Mutiny: slave rebellion that took place on the slave ship Amistad near the coast
of Cuba and had important political and legal repercussions in the American Abolitionist
movement.

The mutineers were captured and tried in the United States, and a surprising victory for
the countrys antislavery forces resulted in 1841 when the U.S. Supreme Court freed the
rebels. A committee formed to defend the slaves later developed into the American
Missionary Association (incorporated 1846).

On July 2, 1839, the Spanish schooner Amistad was sailing from Havana to Puerto
Prncipe, Cuba, when the ships unwilling passengers, 53 slaves recently
abducted from Africa, revolted.

Led by Joseph Cinqu, they killed the captain and the cook but spared the life of a
Spanish navigator, so that he could sail them home to Sierra Leone.

The navigator managed instead to sail the Amistad generally northward. Two months
later the U.S. Navy seized the ship off Long Island, N.Y., and towed it into New London,
Conn. The mutineers were held in a jail in New Haven, Conn., a state in which slavery
was legal.



The Spanish embassys demand for the return of the Africans to Cuba led to an 1840
trial in a Hartford, Conn., federal court. New England Abolitionist Lewis Tappan stirred
public sympathy for the African captives, while the U.S. government took the proslavery
side. U.S.

President Martin Van Buren ordered a Navy ship sent to Connecticut to return the
Africans to Cuba immediately after the trial. A candidate for reelection that year, he
anticipated a ruling against the defendants and hoped to gain proslavery votes by
removing the Africans before Abolitionists could appeal to a higher court.

Prosecutors argued that, as slaves, the mutineers were subject to the laws governing
conduct between slaves and their masters. But trial testimony determined that while
slavery was legal in Cuba, importation of slaves from Africa was not.

Therefore, the judge ruled, rather than being merchandise, the Africans were
victims of kidnapping and had the right to escape their captors in any way they
could.

When the U.S. government appealed the case before the U.S. Supreme Court the next
year, congressman and former president J ohn Quincy Adams argued eloquently for the
Amistad rebels.

The Supreme Court upheld the lower court, and private and missionary society
donations helped the 35 surviving Africans secure passage home. They arrived in Sierra
Leone in J anuary 1842, along with five missionaries and teachers who intended to found
a Christian mission.

Spain continued to insist that the United States pay indemnification for the Cuban
vessel. The U.S. Congress intermittently debated the Amistad case, without resolution,
for more than two decades, until the American Civil War began in 1861.




July 3, 1835: Honorable Anniversary;
Children Go On Strike For An 11-Hour
Workday


Carl Bunin Peace History J une 29 - J uly 5

Progressivehistorians.com:

On J uly 3, 1835, in Paterson, New J ersey, nearly 2,000 textile workers walked off the
job.

The strike was notable for several reasons.

For one thing the strikers werent demanding more money, despite the fact that they only
made $2 a week (adjusted for inflation, that would be $44 a week today).

Their central demand was an 11-hour day (as opposed to the 13.5-hour days they were
currently working), and only 9 hours on Saturday instead of a full day.

That in itself was significant enough. The first strike in American history to limit hours
had happened only 7 years earlier, and was also in Paterson, New J ersey. That strike
had been crushed after a week when the militia was called in.

What made this strike worth remembering was who the strikers were - they were
children, aged 10 to 18. Many of them girls.

Before the month was out the parents of Paterson had joined together to form the
Paterson Association for the Protection of the Working Classes of Paterson. Through
the Association a vigilance committee was formed to organize support. In 1835 there
was no such thing as a labor union. Back then there were only guilds for skilled workers.
Nothing like that existed for textile workers, much less for children.

The management flat-out refused to negotiate with the Association, or any workers
organization. In response, the Association appealed to help from other workers. Women
textile workers in other mills around Paterson walked out. Mechanics from Newark set
up a committee to raise funds and investigate the working conditions in Paterson. This is
what they found:

(conditions in the Paterson mills) belong rather to the dark ages than to the present
times, and would be more congenial to the climate of his majesty the emperor and
autocrat of all the Russians, than this land of the free and home of the brave, this
boasted asylum for the oppressed of all nations.

After six weeks a deal was struck between the Association and the management. They
would split the difference: the children of Paterson would only have to work 12 hours a
day during the week, and 9 hours on Saturday; a 69-hour week. The children who
continued to hold out for the 11-hour day were fired and blacklisted.


July 6, 1892 -- Heroic Anniversary:
What Happened At Homestead Was
Not A Riot. It Was Organised Class
Violence, Consciously Controlled By
The Workers, As Part Of The
Struggle
A Militant Strike Of Steel Workers Of
The Carnegie Company In The U.S.
Defending Their Union Against The
Bosses, The Police And Hired Armed
Mercenaries

Carl Bunin Peace History J uly 5-11

In one of the worst cases of violent union-busting, a fierce battle broke out between the
striking employees (members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel
Workers) of Andrew Carnegies Homestead Steel Company and a Pinkerton Detective
Agency private army brought on barges down the Monongahela River in the dead of
night. Twelve were killed.

Henry C. Frick, general manager of the plant in Homestead, near Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, had been given free rein by Carnegie to quash the strike. At Fricks
request, Pennsylvania Gov. Robert E. Pattison then sent 8,500 troops to intervene on
behalf of the company.

*********************************************************************

Defeated Pinkerton agents, escorted by armed union men, leaving their barges after
surrendering. Harpers Weekly: 1892

From Libcom.org

An account of a militant strike of steel workers of the Carnegie company in the US
defending their union against the bosses, the police and hired armed mercenaries.

The Robber Baron Andrew Carnegie precipitated the Homestead Strike of 1892 with his
attack against the standard of living of the workers and his bid to break the union
representing the highest skilled workers.

Carnegie announced his intention to impose an 18 percent pay cut and issued a
statement saying that the real issue was whether the Homestead steel workers would be
union or non-union.

He ordered a 12 foot high fence to be built around the plant 3 miles in length
with 3 inch holes at shoulder height every 25 feet, signaling preparation for an
armed fight with the workers.

At the same time Carnegie hired the notorious Pinkerton company to provide
armed thugs for the upcoming struggle.

An ultimatum was issued for workers to accept the wage cut by J une 24th or face mass
layoffs.

The workers did not take these provocations lightly.

They were not about to abandon the union and submit to Carnegies dictates without a
fight. The Amalgamated Union, which represented the skilled workers, about 750 of the
plants 3,800 employees, established an Advisory Committee, comprised of five
delegates from each lodge, to coordinate the struggle against Carnegies attacks.

A mass meeting of 3,000 workers from all categories, union and non-union voted
overwhelmingly to strike.

The Advisory Committee took responsibility for organising an elaborate network to track
the companys maneuvers, to monitor the possibility of an anticipated transport of
Pinkerton goons by river boat from Pittsburgh.

Workers rented their own vessel to patrol the river. Every road within a five mile radius
of Homestead was blockaded, and a thousand strikers patrolled the river banks for ten
miles.

The Committee assumed virtual control of the town, assuming authority over the
water, gas, and electricity facilities, shutting down the saloons, maintaining order
and proclaiming ad hoc laws.

An attempt by the county sheriff to move against the strikers fell flat on its face
when he proved unable to raise a posse.

The workers offered the sheriff a tour of the plant and promised to guarantee the security
of the facility from any trespassers. Sympathy for the strikers was high.

On J uly 5th a steam whistle sounded the alarm at 4am.

Two barges transporting more than 300 Pinkertons left Pittsburgh.

By the time the thugs arrived at Homestead, 10,000 armed strikers and their
supporters were gathered to greet them.

An armed confrontation erupted. Thirty workers were wounded, and three killed in the
early fighting. Armed proletarians from nearby towns rushed to the scene to reinforce
their class brothers. The shoot-out continued throughout the day.

Finally the demoralized Pinkertons, trapped in debilitating heat on the barges,
outnumbered and outgunned, mutinied against their superiors.

Most were not regular agents, but reservists who had been recruited under false
pretences; they were prepared to do some bullying, intimidating and terrorizing, but did
not have the stomach to confront armed, organised class resistance.

Once the Pinkertons surrendered, the workers debated what to do with their
despised prisoners. Angered by the casualties inflicted by the Pinkertons a total
of 40 wounded, 9 killed - some wanted to execute the thugs, but the Committee
reasoned that a mass execution would be used against the strikers by the bosses.

Instead the Pinkertons were forced to run a gauntlet. In the end the casualties
suffered by the Pinkertons were 20 shot, seven killed and 300 injured running the
gauntlet.

In retaliation for the deaths of strikers, a young Russian anarchist called Alexander
Berkman attempted to assassinate the Carnegie boss Henry Clay Frick. He shot Frick
three times and stabbed him with a poison-tipped dagger, but Frick remarkably survived.
Berkman was subsequently imprisoned for 14 years.

The strike continued for four months.

Eventually federal troops were brought in to crush the struggle, and 160 strikers were
arrested and charged with murder and assault.

But the bosses repressive apparatus could not find a jury anywhere in the
Pittsburgh region that would convict a single striker. All were acquitted.

Hugh ODonnell, one of the strike leaders, was first charged with treason.
Following his acquittal on those charges, he was immediately rearrested and tried
for murder. And following acquittal on that charge, he was rearrested and tried for
assault again successfully beating back the states prosecution.

However, despite beating back the criminal charges, the strike morale was broken, and
the union driven out. Throughout the country workers were sympathetic to the struggle at
Homestead, and needless to say, the spokesmen of the capitalist class were furious.
Strikers were referred to as a mob.

The New York Times granted that the company had provoked the battle, nevertheless
maintained solidarity with its class brother and insisted that the obligation of the state
was to enforce law and order at Homestead, to quell the mob, to put the property of the
Carnegie Steel Company in possession its owners and to protect their lawful rights.

Despite ending in defeat, Homestead was an important moment in the history of class
struggle in America.

What happened at Homestead was not a riot.

It was organised class violence, consciously controlled by the workers, as part of
the struggle.

Homestead demonstrated clearly the capacity of workers to organise their
struggles, to resist the attacks of the capitalist class, to achieve an active
solidarity in struggle, to organise their own power to rival that of the local state
apparatus during the struggle, to organise class violence and exercise it
judiciously.


July 6, 1944 -- Noble Anniversary:
Eleven Years Before Rosa Parks, A
Courageous Lady Defies Bus Racism
And Wins

Carl Bunin Peace History J uly 5-11

Irene Morgan, a 28-year-old black woman, was arrested for refusing to move to the back
of the bus eleven years before Rosa Parks did so.

Her legal appeal, after her conviction for breaking a Virginia law (known as a J im Crow
law) forbidding integrated seating, resulted in a 7-1 Supreme Court decision barring
segregation in interstate commerce.

*************************************

By Robin Washington, Robin Washington. Com [Excerpts]

Eleven years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus in
Montgomery, Alabama, a young woman named Irene Morgan rejected that same
demand on an interstate bus headed to Maryland from Gloucester, Virginia.

Recovering from a miscarriage and already sitting far in the back, she defied the drivers
order to surrender her seat to a white couple.

Like Parks, Morgan was arrested and jailed. But her action caught the attention of
lawyers from the NAACP, led by Thurgood Marshall, and in two years her case reached
the Supreme Court. Though the lawyers fervently believed that J im Crow - the curious
pseudonym for racial segregation - was unjust, they recognized the practice was still the
law of the land, upheld by the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.

Instead of seeking a judgment on humanitarian grounds or the equal protection
provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, they made the seemingly arcane argument
that segregation in interstate travel violated the Constitutions Interstate Commerce
Clause.

On J une 3, 1946, that strategy paid off. In Irene Morgan v. Virginia, the court ruled that
segregation in interstate travel was indeed unconstitutional as an undue burden on
commerce.

But though that the decision was now law, the southern states refused to enforce it, and
J im Crow continued as the way of life in the South.



DANGER: CAPITALISTS AT WORK





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OCCUPATION PALESTINE


Palestinian Youth Killed During
Regime Night Raid On Jalazone
Refugee Camp:
He Was Killed, And Buried, Only One
Week After Being Released From The
Occupation Prisons

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, Sabarin was killed when he was shot directly
in the chest.

16 J une 2014 Electronic Intifada

Since the reported disappearance and claimed kidnapping of 3 young Israeli settlers
near Gush Etzion settlement on Friday, Israeli Occupation Forces have been carrying
out widespread raids and attacks across the West Bank and have also bombed Gaza.
With an intensive arrest campaign underway across the West Bank, it is now reported
that at least 150 Palestinians have been arrested since Friday.

Hebron has been heavily attacked during these ongoing invasions and is under almost
complete closure with checkpoints surrounding the city.

On Sunday night, the IOF continued their raids on the southern city as well as invading
Beit J ala and Bethlehem, Ramallah and its refugee camps, and both Nablus and J enin.

During raids around the Ramallah area, J alazone refugee camp was attacked overnight.
3 young Palestinians were shot with live bullets during the invasion and one of the youth,
20 year old Ahmad Sabarin, was killed after being shot directly in the chest.

Thousands of Palestinians from the Ramallah area gathered in J alazone camp for
Sabarin's funeral.

He was killed, and buried, only one week after being released from the occupation
prisons.


Occupation Forces Evict Palestinian
Returnees From Their Christian
Village:
The Activists Are All Descendants Of
Palestinian Refugees From The Village,
Who Where Expelled From The Village In
The 1948 War

Palestinian refugees of Iqrit prepare for Easter celebrations amongst the ruins of their
destroyed village on Sunday April 20, 2014 | Dylan Collins

The Israel Land Authority demolished a camp on Wednesday set up by activists in the
destroyed village of Kufr Birim, in the Galilee region of Israel.

The activists are all descendants of Palestinian refugees from the village, who where
expelled from the village in the 1948 war.

Last August approximately 10 young Palestinians decided to set up camp in the village,
to demand their right of return to the lands of their families. They have maintained a near
constant presence amongst the ruins ever since.

Shortly after setting up the camp, the first eviction order was given. The group began a
court case to oppose the order, but their request was denied, as was the appeal they
filed afterwards. According to Raed, whose family is originally from Kufr Birim, the
appeal was denied because the government doesnt recognize their claim to the land.

They say its the governments land, not ours. We built the camp around the
church, because thats the only thing that doesnt belong to the government. But
they demolished our camp anyway.

Raeds son Wassim, one of the activists that stayed in the camp for the past ten
months, said they knew the eviction was coming. We got the eviction order, and we lost
our final appeal last month. The police came a day before the eviction, and told us it
would happen.

Despite the eviction, he and his fellow activists are not planning to leave Kufr Birim for
long. They demolished the camp, and confiscated our personal items. They even
disconnected the water and electricity supplies, which was not in the eviction order. But
we went back the same day, said Wassim.

During the past ten months, the campers experienced a series of protests from
neighboring [Zionist] towns against their presence amongst the villages ruins. Two or
three times Israelis came here in the very early morning. They uprooted olive trees
Wassim recalls. With the camp destroyed and no electricity or water, it looks like the
situation in the village will be more difficult from now on. Now that the eviction order is
final, the police can come and clear the village at any time.

The eviction from Kufr Birim follows a raid by Israels Land Authority and police in Iqrit,
another destroyed village in the northern Galilee.

In Iqrit, too, young Palestinians returned to their familys village and lands almost two
years ago. During the raid last Sunday, the police confiscated personal belongings and
demolished the tents in which the activists were living. Three activists were arrested,
after reportedly being punched and kicked by police officers while they tried to stop them
from taking personal belongings.

The Land Authority only allows the people of Kufr Birim and Iqrit to hold church services
on the destroyed villages and bury the dead in the cemetery. After the evictions from
both towns, it seems even less likely than before they will be allowed to return there
permanently any time soon.

Walaa Sbait, one of the three men arrested in Iqrit, told the Guardian, Right now
Iqrit people have the right to return only in a coffin, but we want to live here.


Occupation Forces Kill Two West
Bank Youths In Ongoing Attacks:
Since 2000, Israeli Forces And Settlers
Have Killed More Than 1,400 Palestinian
Children In The West Bank And Gaza
Strip

Relatives of Mohammed Dudeen mourn during the 15-year-olds funeral in the West
Bank city of Hebron, 20 J une. (Mamoun Wazwaz / APA images)

06/20/2014 by Maureen Clare Murphy, ElectronicIntifada.net

Correction (25 J une 2014): Mustafa Aslan, one of the youths referred to in this headline,
was reported at the time of publication by Maan News Agency to have died on 20 J une
but this information was incorrect. He passed away on 25 J une from the injuries he
sustained on 20 J une.

***********************************************************

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian youths, including a child, during an ongoing military
assault in the occupied West Bank today.

Fifteen-year-old Mohammed Dudeen was killed by a single live bullet after dozens of
Israeli soldiers descended on his home village of Dura, near the southern West Bank city
of Hebron, overnight, the rights group Defense for Children International Palestine
reported today.

The group adds:

In sworn testimonies given to Defense for Children International Palestine (DCI-
Palestine), eyewitnesses stated that clashes erupted between local residents and
soldiers as the Israeli military forced entry into over twenty homes. Soldiers used crowd-
control weapons and live ammunition against youths throwing stones.

The fatal shooting took place as Israeli soldiers prepared to leave the village at dawn.
Eyewitnesses report that soldiers stationed in Haninia neighborhood fired teargas
canisters, stun grenades, and live ammunition at civilians. The soldier who fired the shot
was reportedly not more than 80 meters (262 feet) from the victim.

Mohammad Dudeen becomes the sixth Palestinian child to be killed by Israeli forces
since the start of the year.

Meanwhile in southern Gaza, DCI-Palestine confirmed five children were injured in an
Israeli missile strike on Friday, including a 25-day-old baby.

Meanwhile, DCI-Palestine adds:

According to Maan News Agency, two young Palestinian children were injured by
shrapnel on the evening of J une 15 when the Israeli army bombed the front door of their
Hebron home. DCI-Palestines own data records two teens, 14 and 17, injured in Nablus
on J une 17. Another 17-year-old was injured on J une 18, also in Nablus. All were
wounded during Israeli raids in the area.

Another youth, 22-year-old Mustafa Hosni Aslan, succumbed to wounds sustained
during an Israeli army raid on Qalandiya refugee camp near Ramallah before dawn
today, Maan News Agency reports.

Maan adds:

His death was announced in Qalandiya refugee camp only hours after it had been
announced that he was injured, not killed, leading to a state of shock for many residents
upon hearing the news.

Locals said that youths had thrown rocks and broken bottles at the Israeli troops when
they stormed the camp, leading to violent clashes.

Two other Palestinians were shot during the raid, one in the stomach and one in the
side.

Israeli forces confirmed the raid and the shooting, saying that they responded with live
fire after a grenade was thrown at Israeli forces in the camp.

A total of three Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the last week as Israel
has launched its largest military assault in the occupied territory in more than a decade
following the disappearance of three Israeli teens there on Thursday, 12 J une.

On Saturday, 14 J une, a seven-year-old boy in Gaza died of wounds sustained days
earlier during an air strike in which a suspected fighter was extrajudicially executed.

More than 330 Palestinians have been swept up in mass arrests across the West Bank
in the last week, and the Israeli attorney general has reportedly approved the use of
moderate physical pressure against those arrested, in what the Public Committee
Against Torture in Israel says amounts to pre-approval of torture.

Since 2000, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,400 Palestinian children in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip.



DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK


THE US-IRAN RESPONSE TO THE IRAQ CRISIS


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